The Hallmark Channel’s ballyhooed television series in Telluride is now on its third potential filming location as production deadlines loom, but the head of Colorado’s Office of Film, Television and Media is confident filming will begin soon.

Hallmark’s television series is searching for a location in Telluride.

Producers of the family-friendly television series – the first narrative series in Colorado since 1991 – initially hoped to erect a set built to mirror 1910 Telluride on an old mining tailings pile that hosts a not-yet-built residential development outside town. But the 120-acre Idarado Legacy project includes 37 homesite owners and each would need to approve filming.

“That never could have happened. We don’t even know where all these people live,” Zuckerman said.

A second site in the Ilium Valley on Forest Service land would have required grading and other work as well as an approval timeline that didn’t fit filming deadlines, Zuckerman said.

Producers are now negotiating for a third site, identified by the Telluride Daily Planet as land near Alta Lakes owned by Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett Packard. Zuckerman said the owner of the land was amenable to filming and a deal is near.

Producers eyed Silverton, Georgetown and Central City but opted for Telluride based on its proximity to an airport and high end lodging for stars like Jean Smart, Lori Loughlin, Erin Krakow and Daniel Lissing, Zuckerman said.

The Hallmark series marks the largest fish landed with the new incentive program.
Zuckerman said Telluride and county officials are eager to host the filming but increasing production costs and land-use regulations are slowing plans.
“The vast majority of the citizenry wants it but there’s always that NIMBY factor and there’s always somebody would like it but not in their frontyard,” he said.

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Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.